Fantastic Downy Mildew Pathogens and How to Find Them: Advances in Detection and Diagnostics

Abstract

Downy mildews affect important crops and cause severe losses in production worldwide. Accurate identification and monitoring of these plant pathogens, especially at early stages of the disease, is fundamental in achieving effective disease control. The rapid development of molecular methods for diagnosis has provided more specific, fast, reliable, sensitive, and portable alternatives for plant pathogen detection and quantification than traditional approaches. In this review, we provide information on the use of molecular markers, serological techniques, and nucleic acid amplification technologies for downy mildew diagnosis, highlighting the benefits and disadvantages of the technologies and target selection. We emphasize the importance of incorporating information on pathogen variability in virulence and fungicide resistance for disease management and how the development and application of diagnostic assays based on standard and promising technologies, including high-throughput sequencing and genomics, are revolutionizing the development of species-specific assays suitable for in-field diagnosis. Our review provides an overview of molecular detection technologies and a practical guide for selecting the best approaches for diagnosis.